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Re: Scanning photos...

John, thanks for that as Scangear did lead me into some hitherto unseen 'Advanced' settings that enabled me to increase resolution up to 1200dpi which did, slightly, improve the quality of the scan. Unfortunately it also increased the scan time to several minutes, produced a huge 80mb image, lost me the ability to automatically separate multiple photos scanned simultaneously and still wasn't even as sharp as the photo I took with my iPad.

It seems that there is a difference between a scanner's optical resolution (my Canon TS8050 is 2400 x 4800) and a scans dpi. This was explained to me by the dealer who supplied the printer but it isn't clear enough in my head to repeat it here. Suffice to say that 300dpi should have been sufficient to produce an acceptable scan but, as it doesn't, I'll investigate this more as the scanner may be faulty.

All of which means that, for now, I'm going to abandon using a scanner for my photo digitising and build a flatbed rig to hold photos while I photograph them. If I use an iPad (or Android smartphone) there are apps which separate multiple images so I'll have to investigate what to use - unless others have taken this path before me and can make suggestions?

Re: Scanning photos...

Good suggestion John but, IIRC (and it's a few years since I last used one) are they just clamps holding the paper down? If so that wouldn't work for me as I need a glass plate to flatten the curly old photos I want to digitise. I think I can make something easily enough using a photo frame but would probably also need a tent to eliminate reflections. Some thought needed

Re: Scanning photos...

Scanners usually have a native resolution and anything past that point is interpolation. That is why the quality got worse at 1200 DPI more than likely. Print quality is generally 300 DPI and many times 600 DPI is the native resolution. I am not sure you are going to achieve what you are seeking. Multi use devices aren't usually built to the quality standards of devoted devices. My Epson scanner produces good scans. But in comparison to my developer's good scanner, it is no contest. And scanning through glass puts a reflective surface between your scanner glass and the image you are scanning. Since you are scanning with a light passed through the scanners glass, you have now put two pieces of glass between the scanner receptor and the image you are scanning. Like a camera lens, it will reduce the quality of your image.

Re: Scanning photos...

Have you made sure it is the driver from the Canon website, as there is the case that windows puts an equivalent driver, tell tale is a quick response from Windows , that driver is installed and you are ready to go.... just a thought, it has happened a few times with me on various bits of kit..